26. Little Girl Lost

A married couple, Chris and Ruth Miller, are awakened by the whimpering of their little daughter, Tina. Chris goes to see what the trouble is. Their dog, Mack, begins to bark from the backyard. Chris cannot find Tina either in or under the bed, even though her pleas for help seem to be coming from nearby, yet far away. He calls Ruth into the room, and she is similarly mystified. Chris phones his physicist friend, Bill, for help, and opens the door to let the incessantly barking Mack into the house. The dog runs under the bed and disappears, but can still be heard barking, again close, but far away.

Bill arrives and helps Chris move the bed so that he can physically scan the area where it was, marking the legs with books. When this proves fruitless, Bill examines the wall behind the bed. Finding that his hand can pass easily through the wall and to another dimension, he draws marks on the wall outlining the apparent boundary. He explains to Chris and Ruth that sometimes lines in a three-dimensional universe run parallel with, rather than perpendicular to, the fourth dimension. He warns them that they know nothing of what might lie beyond this portal, and should they follow Tina into the fourth dimension, they would only become hopelessly lost as well, since it is not like the three dimensions humans can perceive.

Chris calls to Mack to guide Tina back. Mack leads Tina to the source of Chris's voice, but they still cannot find the entrance. Despite Bill's warnings, Chris reaches into the portal and falls into the fourth dimension, an abstract, crystalline landscape that seems distorted, and constantly turning upside down and sideways. Bill advises him not to move. Chris sees Tina and Mack and calls them towards him. Bill calls for him to hurry. When Tina and Mack close in on Chris, Bill grabs them and pulls them back into the bedroom. Ruth rushes Tina to another room.

Bill explains that Chris was only halfway through the portal, despite Chris's perception that he was standing up in the new dimension. Bill was in fact holding onto Chris the entire time. He was telling Chris to hurry because the portal was closing. Bill knocks on the wall, showing that the portal has completely solidified and closed. He explains that if Chris had taken a few more seconds, the two halves of his body might have become trapped half in his dimension and half in the fourth dimension.